Obama to announce manufacturing institute in NC
DURHAM, N.C. (AP) — Highlighting the growing manufacturing sector of the U.S. economy, President Barack Obama is proposing new ways for the government and the private sector to help keep those jobs coming.
Obama was announcing Wednesday that a consortium of 18 businesses and six universities, led by North Carolina State University, has been chosen to lead a manufacturing innovation institute to develop next-generation power electronics. It's the first of three such hubs that Obama called for in his State of the Union address last year, using $200 million in existing federal money.
Battered by the calamitous rollout of the federal health insurance website and the lowest job approval ratings of his presidency, Obama has sought to stay focused on the unsteady economic recovery and jobs and position himself as a champion of working-class people and the jobless.
His first White House appearance after returning from vacation in Hawaii was to call on Congress to reinstate long-term unemployment benefits. The program expired late last month and immediately cut off financial aid for more than 1.3 million people who have exhausted their state-paid unemployment benefits.
Senate votes Tuesday on a pair of Democratic-drafted proposals to reinstate the program fell short of the tally needed for passage.
Obama's quick stop in North Carolina also comes after the government reported last Friday that employers added just 74,000 jobs in December. The report raised fresh concerns about the pace of the economic recovery. The national unemployment rate also fell three-tenths of a percentage point, from 7 percent to 6.7 percent, to its lowest level in more than five years, but only because a wave of job-seekers had given up looking for work. That meant the government no longer counted them as unemployed.
The White House says since the end of the recession, manufacturing has grown at the fastest pace in more than a decade, with more than a half-million jobs added in the past four years. The figure includes the addition of about 80,000 jobs in just the past five months and the White House says Obama wants to build on that progress.
The new manufacturing institute will focus on developing the next generation of energy-efficient, high-power electronic chips and devices that will be used to help make things like motors, consumer electronics and other devices that support the power grid smaller, faster and more efficient.
Before his speech in Raleigh, Obama toured Vacon, a member of the consortium that manufactures drives to make electric motors more energy-efficient by controlling their speed. "That means, ultimately, energy savings that we can spread across the entire economy," Obama told reporters as he toured the company in shirtsleeves.
While the economy was the reason for Obama's trip, it wasn't without a dose of political drama.
Kay Hagan, the state's Democratic U.S. senator, did not plan to join Obama as lawmakers often do when a president visits their turf. Her office said she wouldn't be there because the Senate is in session, an explanation Republicans weren't buying. The GOP hopes unhappiness with Obama's health care law and Hagan's support for it will help topple her in November and help the party take back the Senate.
Hagan's decision has raised questions about whether Obama has become a drag on vulnerable Democrats facing re-election.
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